Narrative Methods: pages 56-62 “You mean that you wish you were dead”, McCarthy continuously develops characters but slowly, creating hesitation in the reader’s minds and preventing judgement of what could be a reflection of himself and his son. Throughout the novel the man commits these selfless acts to his son. Only when an idea that his son admits his longing for death, “I wish I was with my mom”, do we see a more selfish side. McCarthy depicts this when the man tells the boy off, a first within the novel, “You mustn’t say that”, it is also the first time the man sort of says no to the boy. In consideration, self-loathing rules the man’s existence forcing him to be selfless.
Colonel Sarty Snopes, his son, realizes so when he has to choose between doing the right thing or loyalty to his family, his father. The story stops being about a war between the wealthy and poor and more about choosing what he believes or his family believes. The story opens with Sarty and Abner in a courtroom. Abner has been accused of arson and Sarty must testify. Sarty must choose between going with the views of his morally corrupt father or declaring his individuality by testifying against his father and leaving his family behind.
The younger brother Doodle, is being pushed by his older brother, referred to only as Brother, to learn from sitting to crawl, crawl to walk, and walk to run but Brother isn’t doing it for Doodle. He’s doing it for himself. Hurst’s short story reveals how pride can be two-faced, light and dark, making Doodle’s brother do selfish things but achieve good as well. In “The Scarlet Ibis”, Brother’s pride gives him the push to teach Doodle how to walk but leads to the tragic fact that Doodle ends up passing because of his brother. Brother knows that in the back of his head that he’s helping doodle for himself.
One way the narrator exemplifies his prideful actions is by forcing his brother to touch his coffin. When Doodle is born the narrator is told that “he might not… be ‘all there’” (2). The terrible thing about making Doodle touch his coffin is that he is scared and does not want to do it, but Doodle has to toughen up. The narrator would not let Doodle come down from the ladder until he touches the coffin, even threatening to leave his brother alone at the top of the ladder. The wonderful aspect of it is that Doodle has overcome his death.
Night: Passage Analysis Troubling thoughts consumed young Elie because he saw the ways in which father-son relationships are torn asunder by the camps. He watches as sons deny—or at least consider denying—care to their fathers, putting their own interests before their loved ones. Elie struggles with the same conflict when his father becomes ill, and when his father finally dies, Elie is profoundly sad though also proud that he never wholly compromised his own beliefs about family. The reason that Elie finds the deterioration of father-son relationships so painful is that the maintenance of this relationship seems to be the last barrier between a world that is semi-normal and one that has completely been turned upside down. Elie must continue
Whereas, Armitage shows a son who finds it harder to describe his feelings for his father, and shows it by using an extended metaphor of a harmonium, in order to show the reader all the memories he has had because of his father, and how he loves him. The way his father jokes about his own death is an example of the stereotypical father and son relationship; not as open about feelings. ...read
Live theatre review “Our House”; based on the music of madness, the plot focuses on 16 year old Joe Casey and how the choices you make in life will affect you in the long term. His father (Ian Reddington) is a constant theme, punctuating scenes with his lyrical narration, trying to make his son choose the right path. Although the road of temptation may seem to be the best option, eventually in the long term it costs him everything he loves and everyone he loves, even being culpable in the man slaughter of his own mother. Whilst on the right path good Joe does make mistakes and is punished for them, consequently spending time in a young offenders institute, in the long run he wins back the love of his life Sarah, and saves his mother from eviction; the right path typically ends with a positive ending – he takes on the strength of the corrupt business man Mr. pressman and wins, in a court law. The production finishes as it starts, with his mum greeting him outside “our house”, asking “what are you going to do on your special day?” leaving the audience to assume he will see sense and take the right path.
In fact, he “fights for the privilege of [his son’s] company” (Wolff, 1), pleading to his distrustful wife that he would be responsible enough to bring their son back in time for dinner. Wolff uses the word privilege to describe both the father’s bold, impulsive, even dramatic character (as it is assumed to be spoken by the father) and his deep longing for his son. True to his character, the father fails to fulfill his promise, taken over by his childish excitement over skiing. As he worries over the consequences of his action and seeks assurance that his son wants him back, we see a character torn between his impulses and his desire to be a responsible father. He tells his son, “I can’t let that happen…I’ll tell you what I want.
This once inner conflict soon becomes an outward conflict between Biff and Willy. Willy has a particular standards which he holds Biff to. Willy wishes for his eldest to be a salesman, as himself, absent-mindedly forgetting that his other son, Happy, has completed such a task and became the one thing he wanted for Biff. Willy is quite critical of Biff’s life choices, seeing them as failures, while Willy is losing his worldly possessions, his family and even his health because of said profession. Willy, himself, conformed rather than following his brother to Alaska, Africa or anywhere else.
Although Spurgeon is angry with his father, Ray Bivens Jr. and does not seem to understand him, he has a great desire to reconnect and somehow be close with his father. An example of this great desire would be when he drove down to get Ray Bivens Jr. out of jail. Spurgeon knew that he was not supposed to go down there and that his mother told him not to go but because it was his father he did it anyways. Another example would be when he was at the bar with his father, and his father was trying to get the keys and drive off with Farrah. Spurgeon and his father ended up getting into a fight about his father leaving with his mother’s car.